Pupatello talks Bay Street, big hair and her ideal campaign song

Sandra Pupatello, seldom seen with her hands in her pockets, speaks during a forum at the Canadian Club of Toronto in Toronto on Thursday December 6, 2012. CP/Frank Gunn

Ontario Liberal leadership hopeful Sandra Pupatello has a geographic bone to pick with those who describe her 2011 departure from politics for the private sector as her move to Bay Street. She says it with a wry smile: PricewaterhouseCoopers is actually, in fact, located on York Street. And she maintained her home in Windsor even while working in Toronto.

The distinction matters for a candidate trying to position herself as a economy-first choice, and also an outsider, someone not from Toronto — and more importantly, not part of the troubled Liberal minority government.

Perhaps a more obvious contrast is to the man she’s looking to replace: while Premier Dalton McGuinty was often criticized for being too nerdy and too wooden, Pupatello is terribly funny, and very charismatic.

It’s closing in on 8 p.m., but she is drinking coffee — a medium with cream.

“It’s like a religion,” she says of her Tim Hortons order.

Pupatello has spent another hectic day on the campaign trail, flying from Timmins the night before to spend the day in her hometown of Windsor. This is the city where she got her start in politics, elected to the Ontario legislature in the dramatic 1995 provincial election that tossed Bob Rae from the premier’s chair and installed Mike Harris.

She arrives at the ubiquitous Canadian coffee shop straight from a $500/person fundraiser at the swanky City Grill about a block away. This is the part in the story where it would make the most sense to remark on her hair (big!) and her style (glamorous!). Such observations seem to make their way into every media story and casual discussion about the former cabinet minister.

Pupatello is well aware of the phenomenon. Her constituency office used to field a lot of emails about what she was wearing on TV last night or the change she’d made to her hair.

“I got a kick out of it,” she says. “I was always determined that just because I was going to be a politician didn’t mean I wasn’t going to be a woman. I’m going to be who I am. And I think how you look tells people a lot about yourself, and I think you should present yourself very well.”

If she’s elected Liberal leader at the end of January, Pupatello will automatically become Ontario’s first female premier. Though she says that factoid wasn’t a driver when she decided to enter the race, she thinks it would be positive for the province.

“I have always said that we need more women in politics, full stop,” she says. “The fact that we haven’t had one as premier I think says it’s time. Although we better be good! We better be good.”

Much like Canada’s first female prime minister, the honour could be short-lived. Many political observers believe Ontario is headed for another general election early in 2013, with the opposition parties eager to capitalize on the Liberal party’s adjustment to a brand new leader and its missteps on Bill 115, the controversial legislation used to impose new contracts on the province’s public school teachers.

But Pupatello insists she can restore functionality at Queen’s Park and bridge the divide with teachers. She sees the announced repeal of the controversial Putting Students First Act as the first step in that regard.

“Liberals, they champion collective bargaining. So these past few months, it’s an aberration to the typical Liberal history, and we’re going to get back to collective bargaining.”

While Pupatello watched Queen’s Park from afar over the last year, she said the problems seemed to stem from the government acting like they had a majority when they only have a minority — something she says she can fix, as someone who spent eight years in opposition.

“I think the behaviour really should have been a lot more reaching over to take ideas from opposition and incorporate them into government, and I intend to do that,” she says. “The first calls I’m going to make if I win this thing is going to be to Hudak and Horwath and say: ‘Roll up your sleeves, we got work to do.’”

But when asked which opposition proposals she’d like to adopt, she can’t think of one. There is one she definitely can’t stomach, and that’s PC leader Tim Hudak’s suggestion that Ontario adopt right-to-work legislation, as happened last month in Michigan. She is also critical of his proposal to lower the corporate tax rate.

Ontario is an advanced manufacturing jurisdiction with a bright future, she insists. The province has a competitive tax structure and attracted more foreign direct investment than any other jurisdiction in North America at the height of the recession. Ontario needs to be aggressive, competitive, but she doesn’t consider Michigan’s right-to-work move a threat.

An idea she would like to borrow comes from former New Brunswick premier Frank McKenna, who pushed for job creation and investment by putting someone in his own office in charge of taking those calls.

“So everyone who was out trying to look for investments for their province knew they had a direct line into the premiers shop. That’s how interested they were.”

Pupatello is one of seven candidates in the race, and with an impressive list of high-profile endorsements, she is viewed as a frontrunner to replace Dalton McGuinty. Even if she doesn’t win the leadership, Pupatello says she wants to return to politics — that could mean running as a candidate in the next provincial election, though she is careful to say she can’t assume she would win a nomination contest. (At least in Windsor, there is little doubt she would be welcomed with open arms.)

“I’m telling my party that I’m going to participate any way that I can, because I’m telling you, I do not want us to lose this election. So whatever I can do to be helpful there is what I intend to do.”

Pupatello’s campaign has her criss-crossing Ontario, meeting Liberals in a new town just about every day. But when asked what she’s using as her campaign song, she hesitates — she doesn’t think she has one. No matter. She’s quick to name what she wishes it was: The Bitch is Back, the 1970s rock song performed by both Elton John and Tina Turner.

She reaches across the table — I understand she’s joking, right? That she said that jokingly? I assure her I get it. So she says it again, pleased with her choice.